Vincent Brown’s Journal and Photography

Why I Believe Don Imus Should Have Been Fired

Now, I (Vincenzo) believe everyone has the right to speak what’s on their mind (though I prefer that they do it intelligently), but in the very least, people who betray the trust put in them by sponsors and the community at large, must be held accountable. Politicians serve the public and I believe they should refrain from endorsing Don Imus by patronizing his radio show “Imus In The Morning” (If he’s let back on the air), if they feel he has acted inappropriately. Those who don’t believe Don Imus has acted inappropriately, are obviously desensitized to what rational beings deem as hurtful. After all, unprovoked, he attacked 10 intelligent female athletes for no apparent reason other than they are black, female and had lost a basketball game.

The following is only a sampling of some notable remarks that Don Imus has made over the years, disparaging various groups and showing his ignorance and a general lack of cultural sensitivity. Anyone who has listened to his show on a regular basis knows these are fairly tame and a lot of his derogatory comments are much more indirect and subliminal, but just as hurtful.

Read more about it including commentary at Slate.com:
http://www.slate.com/id/2163872?nav=ais

On blacks:

“William Cohen, the Mandingo deal.” (Former Defense Secretary Cohen’s wife is African-American.)

“Wasn’t in a woodpile, was he?” (Responding to news that former black militant H. Rap Brown, subsequently known as Abdullah Al-Amin, was found hiding in a shed in Alabama after exchanging gunfire with police. Imus is here alluding to the expression “nigger in the woodpile.”)

“Knuckle-dragging moron.” (Description of basketball player Patrick Ewing.)

“We all have 12-inch penises.” (After being asked what he has in common with Nat Turner, Malcolm X, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Latrell Sprewell from the New York Knicks, and Al Sharpton.)

“Chest-thumping pimps.” (Description of the New York Knicks.)

“A cleaning lady.” (Reference to journalist Gwen Ifill, possibly out of pique that she wouldn’t appear on his show. “I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will,” she wrote in the April 10 New York Times. The Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page used to appear, but after he made Imus pledge not to make offensive comments in the future, he was never asked back.)

On Jews:

“I remember when I first had [the Blind Boys of Alabama] on a few years ago, how the Jewish management at whatever, whoever we work for, CBS, or whatever it is, were bitching at me about it. […] I tried to put it in terms that these money-grubbing bastards could understand.”

“Boner-nosed … beanie-wearing Jewboy.” (Description of Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, a frequent guest.)

On women:

“That buck-tooth witch Satan, Hillary Clinton.” […] “I never admitted it when I went down there and got in all that big jam, insulting Bill Clinton and his fat ugly wife, Satan. Did I? Did I ever say I was sorry for that?”

On Native Americans:

“The guy from F-Troop, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell.” (This is a reference to the zany Indian characters on the 1960s TV sitcom F-Troop. They had names like “Roaring Chicken,” “Crazy Cat,” and “Chief Wild Eagle.”)

On Japanese:

“Old Kabuki’s in a coma and the market’s going up. […] How old is the boy? The battery’s running down on that boy.” (Reference to Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who died the following week.)

On gays:

“I didn’t know that Allan Bloom was coming in from the back end.” (The homosexuality of the author of The Closing of the American Mind became widely known when Saul Bellow published Ravelstein, a novel whose protagonist was based on Bloom, who by then was deceased.)

“The enormously attractive [NBC political correspondent] Chip Reid, I can say without being accused of being some limp-wristed ‘mo.”

On the handicapped:

“Janet Reno’s having a press conference. Ms. Reno, of course, has Parkinson’s disease, has a noticeable tremor. […] I don’t know how she gets that lipstick on (laughter) looking like a rodeo clown.”

Every one of these statements came directly out of Imus’ mouth on his program. That’s striking because Imus usually leaves it to other show regulars (especially McGuirk, the aforementioned point man on “nigger” jokes) to say the most offensive stuff, with Imus feeding them straight lines. It’s safer that way.

Bookmark this story with: